Insider Report Tells of Atrocious Working Conditions at Konami

[Steven Bogos]

Insider Report Tells of Atrocious Working Conditions at Konami

Japanese financial newspaper The Nikkei's insider report on Konami's working conditions tell of an environment built around fear.

Today, Japanese financial newspaper The Nikkei has Silent Hills [http://www.nikkei.com/article/DGXMZO89986400R30C15A7000000/?dg=1] has further raised questions on how the company treats its employees. The Nikkei's report seems to fairly answer those questions with "not well", speaking of an environment built on fear, and workers treated like prisoners.

Kotaku has offered up a translation [http://kotaku.com/report-konami-is-treating-its-staff-like-prisoners-1721700073] of the original Japanese article. Here are some of the most damming points from the report:


Konami game developers who aren't seen as useful are reassigned to jobs as security guards, cleaning staff at the company's fitness clubs or put to work on the production line at a pachinko-slot machine factory. This includes not just junior staff, but producers who have worked on well-known game titles.
Employees on Hideo Kojima's "Kojima Productions" team are forced to work on computers allegedly not connected to the internet and are only able to send internal messages.
Employees leaving the company offices during their lunch break are having their absences monitored with time cards. Those who stay out too long are having their names announced throughout the company.
Most Konami employees do not have their own permanent company email addresses. Staff who must deal with people outside the company, such as sales and PR do; however, everyone else routinely has their address randomised and changed every few months. This is reportedly done to prevent headhunting from rival companies.
That there are cameras in the office corridors that aren't there for security, but rather to monitor the movements of the company's own employees.

One particularly crazy anecdote tells of a Konami employee who quit, and posted about it on Facebook. Konami monitored the post, reshuffling any current employees that happened to "like" it.

It's certainly not a very pretty picture, and sounds like something out of an Orwellian nightmare. We've contacted Konami for comment, but don't expect too much to come out of that...

Source: Kotaku [http://www.nikkei.com/article/DGXMZO89986400R30C15A7000000/?dg=1]

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[Scars Unseen]

We've contacted Konami for comment, but don't expect too much to come out of that...

You can expect an email from a PR Representative janitor some time in the near future.

 

[NinjaDeathSlap]

Wow. Just... wow.

Developers at AAA companies being overworked, underpaid, and having little job security is unfortunately common, but this?! This is fucking appalling!

 

[Bat Vader]

We've contacted Konami for comment, but don't expect too much to come out of that...

You can expect an email from a PR Representative janitor some time in the near future.

Wouldn't that actually help the cause of blowing the whistle even more?

I get that people need money to buy stuff to survive but there has to be better ways of acquiring it then working in conditions like this. I'm sure many developers out there are looking to hire people. Plus, with how many devs there are at Konami couldn't they just walkout and make their own development company?

 

[Scars Unseen]

We've contacted Konami for comment, but don't expect too much to come out of that...

You can expect an email from a PR Representative janitor some time in the near future.

Wouldn't that actually help the cause of blowing the whistle even more?

I get that people need money to buy stuff to survive but there has to be better ways of acquiring it then working in conditions like this. I'm sure many developers out there are looking to hire people. Plus, with how many devs there are at Konami couldn't they just walkout and make their own development company?

Igarashi walked out and tried to get backing to make a game. After a year of failure and at the beginnings of financial hardship, he got real lucky with Kickstarter. And not everyone has something like director of Symphony of the Night on their resume to draw upon. You can't just go make your own company if you don't have money, and even if they could, going against the flow isn't something that a lot of Japanese workers are going to be willing to do. Given the steps that Konami takes to prevent them from being picked up by competing companies, I'd say that a mass defection is unlikely.

 

[Naldan]

I'd like to know since when the situation got like this over at Konami. As far as I know, this wasn't the case in the 90's.

 

[Queen Michael]

I wonder how long it has been like this at Konami. Since the 90s? The 00s?

I've heard that their computers lacked Internet access back in the eighties.

Jokes aside, may I ask why computers lacking Internet access is a terrible thing? Not trying to be controversial; I genuinely don't get it.

 

[Luminous_Umbra]

I wonder how long it has been like this at Konami. Since the 90s? The 00s?

I've heard that their computers lacked Internet access back in the eighties.

Jokes aside, may I ask why computers lacking Internet access is a terrible thing? Not trying to be controversial; I genuinely don't get it.

I didn't quite get the internet part either to be honest.

I think the idea is that it cuts them off from the outside world, focusing solely on their jobs at the expense of everything else. Which doesn't sound so bad for day-to-day, but if you take into account family accidents or other emergencies that might not reach an employee as a result.

(And yes, there are certainly other ways employees could learn about emergencies. However, if Konami is willing to go that far, I have no doubts they might bar other methods of outside contact.)

Plus, you know, the whole "workers treated like prisoners" thing.

 

[Casual Shinji]

Right now EA and Ubisoft are blushing like school girls.

I mean, holy shit! I thought Japan got rid of these WW2 antics long ago.

 

[[Kira Must Die]]

That's awful. I mean, the part about reassigning game devs as cleaning staff for being deemed "useless" is just downright immoral. Konami is basically their own little dystopian government.

 

[EeviStev]

In the words of the great Jim Sterling: Fuck Konami.

 

[Briantb]

Well EA isn't the worst company to work for

 

[Ldude893]

Fucking hell, this makes EA Games and Activision sound like utopian societies.

 

[Overquoted]

I wonder how long it has been like this at Konami. Since the 90s? The 00s?

I've heard that their computers lacked Internet access back in the eighties.

Jokes aside, may I ask why computers lacking Internet access is a terrible thing? Not trying to be controversial; I genuinely don't get it.

I didn't quite get the internet part either to be honest.

I think the idea is that it cuts them off from the outside world, focusing solely on their jobs at the expense of everything else. Which doesn't sound so bad for day-to-day, but if you take into account family accidents or other emergencies that might not reach an employee as a result.

(And yes, there are certainly other ways employees could learn about emergencies. However, if Konami is willing to go that far, I have no doubts they might bar other methods of outside contact.)

Plus, you know, the whole "workers treated like prisoners" thing.

Ah I get it now more or less and yeah I don't doubt they'd do worse. They probably have done worse. One can only wonder which part of the stuff they do that hasn't gone public yet heh.

Um, no. It's because wasting time on the internet is a large reason for a loss in productivity. Restricting access means someone can't get easily distracted by websites like, idk, The Escapist? It's not about making them prisoners or isolating them.

[Edit] Plus, if a number of employees are the using the internet for non-work purposes, this can slow down any system that is reliant on networking. So my buddy is watching Netflix on his computer while I'm trying to access an internal database to finish a project...thanks to him (and everyone else with non-essential internet use), that project takes much longer to finish due to load times on my end.

Also, almost no one uses the internet to contact a family member to tell them there's been an emergency. They either call direct, or call the employer who will then route them to the appropriate extension. Seriously, no one uses email/FB to declare a family emergency (not when it's serious).

 

[Gordon_4_v1legacy]

I had heard that Japanese workplace culture was, to put it mildly, bat-shit crazy - but fucking wow.